Narrative Psychology and Narrative Analysis - 05 (by Michael Murray)

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(10) Life History Interviews

The aim of the standard narrative interview is to obtain a detailed account of a particular broad area of experience. It is most frequently used in biographical and life history research. In this case the researcher outlines at the outset the purpose of the interview and then encourages the participant to provide a narrative account. For example, the interviewer could start, “I would like you to tell me the story of your life beginning as far back as you wish and recounting as much detail in your life up until the present.” During the interview the researcher can interject with such comments as “What happened next?” or “Can you recall anything else?” The main emphasis is on how the participant connects events together. This life history interview can be extended to different developmental sequences. For example, it can explore the process of “becoming a psychologist” or “leaving home.” The main concern is that there is substantial opportunity for the narrator to cast a narrative net over a chronological sequence of events. In his or her narrative account the author can deviate from the sequence, select certain events, and ignore others. The interviews with the seniors in the study of living with chronic pain often began with such general queries as, “Can you just tell me a little about yourself, what you used to do, that sort of thing?” Often such an inquiry was sufficient to obtain a very extended life history. Admittedly, some seniors were more restrained. In this situation, it was sometimes useful to move from the general life history interview to the specific episodic interview.

(11) Episodic Interviews

The episodic interview is more focused than the life-course interview (Flick, 2002). The interviewer has a structured series of topics that she or he introduces. However, unlike the standard interview that is structured on a more abstract level, the episodic interview seeks detailed narrative accounts about the participant’s experiences with these topics. The role of the interviewers is to emphasize to the participants that they would like them to expand on their personal experiences. In many ways the episodic interview sets out to deliberately challenge the attitude-scale questionnaire format that has pervaded contemporary society’s idea of social research. The aim is not to get the participants to rate their views about the topic on a five-point scale but rather to give extended narrative accounts about their experience with each of the topics. In the chronic pain study each of the participants was asked to provide an extended account of his or her experience of having pain. That section of the interview provided an episodic narrative that could be analyzed in itself or as part of the larger life history of each participant. Analyzing these pain narratives provided important information on how the participants constructed their experiences of pain. When this was integrated into the broader life narratives it provided an opportunity to explore the broader social and personal context within which the pain narratives were constructed.

(12) Constructing Coherence

In collecting personal narratives we need to be aware that the very interview process may encourage a certain structure for those accounts. In particular, it may encourage a certain narrative coherence. Hollway (1989) has argued, “Participants usually strive for coherence in the narratives they produce (for research as for other purposes).